


Not Today

by PockySquirrel



Category: Power Rangers R.P.M.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 21:13:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PockySquirrel/pseuds/PockySquirrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dillon is less human than he looks. Dillon is more dangerous than his teammates want to believe. Ziggy doesn't seem deterred by any of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Today

Ziggy's touch is as anxious and fluttery as everything else about him. Dillon supposes he shouldn't be surprised by that, or that Ziggy becomes bolder and more eager when he gets the response he wants. All he wants is to please. All he wants is to make Dillon feel good. To make him happy. Dillon isn’t used to his happiness being something that matters. Dillon doesn't understand that about Ziggy, and it unnerves him to the point that he almost pushes Ziggy away and puts a stop to all of this.

Almost. But doesn't.

Dillon is gentle with him. Ziggy seems surprised by that. Perhaps he had expected something different; fingerprint bruising on his hips and damning marks on his neck that he would have to hide tomorrow. Maybe, the thought flits through Dillon’s mind, if Ziggy wants it that way, he’ll do that for him. Someday, but not today.

Ludicrous thought, that. Ludicrous because there is no such thing as ‘someday’. 

Ziggy is not one for post-coital conversation. Dillon is grateful for this. Pillow talk with anyone is awkward. Pillow talk with Ziggy would be unbearable. But no, the Green Ranger is almost uncharacteristically quiet. He doesn’t question what they’ve just done or what it means for their ‘relationship’, such as it is. He doesn’t make or look for any half-meant declarations of affection. No. He stretches like a cat and presumptuously entwines his wiry limbs thoroughly around Dillon. Finding himself trapped in what amounts to a human Kudzu vine, Dillon immediately gives up on his plan to go back to his own bed. It isn't that he wants to stay. He's not the type to enjoy much physical contact. It's just that he knows Ziggy, knows how tenacious he is, and the act of getting him to let go seems too much of an effort to bother with.

Ziggy seems to fall asleep almost instantly in his awkward but strangely comfortable position. His breathing is slow and even. Relaxed. Even peaceful. He’s pressed close enough that Dillon can feel his heartbeat, still just a bit too fast in the aftermath of his exertion. Dillon wonders what that feels like. His own heart rate never changes. 

Dillon never gets much sleep. He doesn’t need it; his enhanced physiology is efficient enough to make do with very little rest. He doesn’t want it, either. Any sleep he gets is inevitably interrupted by the nightmares, making the state of peace Ziggy has attained so easily seem impossible. It’s another thing he doesn’t understand. It’s another reason he wanted to go back to his own bed, before Ziggy decided not to let him. 

Dillon doesn’t sleep. He lies still and listens to the near-silence. He wonders.

"Dillon,” Ziggy murmurs, his breath an irritating tickle against Dillon’s bare skin. “Stop thinking so loud and go to sleep already."

Dillon wants to respond with one of his scathing comebacks, but nothing seems to reach his lips. He wants to grab Ziggy by the shoulders and shake him, ask him how, how can he do this, how can he be so casual? Does he even understand what he's doing? How can he bring himself to commit such an act of human intimacy with a creature who is nearly half machine? How can he lie there so peacefully, knowing he shares the bed with his future murderer?

He wants to. But he doesn't.

He says nothing. And against all logic, he complies, muscles laced with circuitry unwinding as he permits himself to relax into the bed. Ziggy emits a soft but suspiciously smug hum of approval and buries his face between the pillow and Dillon's shoulder. Dillon wonders how in the world he can breathe like that, but like so many other things tonight, he lets the thought go.

Foolish course of action, that. Whatever small comfort he takes in this moment of normalcy, of humanity, it means nothing. It changes nothing.

He is still a time bomb with no clock, ticking inexorably toward an unknown moment and a fate worse than death. He can still feel the eye of death itself, unblinking and fixed on the manmade eggshell that shelters them. Someday it will crack and the city will swarm with Venjix’s drones. Someday the mechanical plague he carries will overtake him. And then he will watch Corinth burn. He will see Ziggy’s slight body broken at his feet. And he will not be capable of caring about any of it. 

Someday.

But not today. 


End file.
